Touchstone's Editors and Allies on News and Events of the Day

May 11, 2011

Keeping it Common

In a somewhat misleading title, The Christian Post ran a story yesterday about Fuller Theological Seminary's approval of the Common English Bible (CEB) for use in Biblical studies classrooms, "Common English Bible Replaces TNIV at Seminary." A spot was opened up, apparently, with the pending removal of the defunct TNIV from Fuller's list. It's not clear whether the updated NIV will make the cut.

Having never really looked at the CEB before, I found a number of the claims in this piece quite striking. The NRSV, for instance, which is reported to written at the 11th grade level, is felt by some to be "out of reach" and more of an "academic Bible." By contrast, the CEB is written at the 7th grade level, which I suppose might be more appropriate for all those academically-challenged seminarians in a Biblical studies course!

Just one more lowlight:

As with any new Bible translation, the Common English Bible has its fair share of criticism.

One of the big shockers is that the CEB translation ditched the common title to Jesus as the "Son of Man" and instead calls him the "the Human One" where the Greek text reads ho huios tou anthrōpou.

"It will strike a number of readers as surprising," admitted Green. "We think it's a better choice than 'Son of Man.' It's not like that phrase communicates well to modern people anyway."

The "Green" in question is "Joel Green," who along with fellow Fuller professor Nancey Murphy has promoted the physicalist/monist interpretation and application of Scripture, which denies traditional body/soul duality. On this, see John W. Cooper, “The Bible and Dualism Once Again: A Reply to Joel B. Green and Nancey Murphy,” Philosophia Christi 9 (2007): 459-69.

7 Comments

This grade level stuff is expectation based. I consider the King James to be written at the second grade level. Having an expectation for non-developed language skills does children a disservice. "See Adam, see Adam name the animals..."

Your final comment is so worded to imply that anyone advocating a non-dualist understanding of body-soul is holding questionable theology. I didn't realize that either shamanistic or Platonic ideas of immaterial souls were part of the Christian canon, or that dualism was required by the defining creeds and confessions of Christianity. (I teach a unit on "self" in intro philosophy every semester, so I know the problems involved.)

On the major issue: I think one must distinguish between the OT and the NT usage here. While not a Hebrew scholar, I think "one like a man (not, 'human')" is defensible in Daniel. However, the technical quality of "Son of Man" as it applies to Jesus ought to be preserved. The connection can be explained in footnotes.

In the translators' defense, ánthropos does mean "human being" and not just "male,"but the older translation of "Son of Man" managed to emcompass both meanings and get the word son (huios) in there as well.

Sometimes you can get overliteral. There are certain translations of troparia--there is one particular theotokion I am thinking of--which translates 'theathropos' as "God-Man." This, although the literal translation, evokes comic book superheroes and is probably not the best translation for a specialised theological term. But we use it anyway, because either nobody has bothered to re-translate it, or nobody has come up with anything better yet.